Tejas finally; Defence has much to offer India Inc

The ongoing induction of Tejas, India's indigenously designed and built light combat aircraft, marks a watershed moment for our military hardware capability. Reportedly, India will have a 200-strong fleet of the supersonic jet. The immediate gameplan is to replace the ageing Russian-made MiG-21 fleet, and increase the IAF's squadron strength with a potent strike force.

But the larger objective ought to be proactive policy so that heightened defence research, procurement and attendant manufacturing positively impact and genuinely benefit the Indian economy as well. Note that semiconductors, supercomputing and even the internet are all spin-offs of US defence research.

We need to better integrate hardware procurement with our high-potential industrial base and actively encourage the corporate sector to foray into defence production to rev up innovation, cut down on costs and also boost export potential in the bargain.

This would require, among others, a transparent policy on competitive tendering and an end to the usual practice of simply nominating one or more of the nine defence public sector undertakings or 49 ordnance factories for the purpose.

Tejas - positioned as a fourth-generation fighter - developed by the state-run Aeronautical Defence Agency and manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd with multiple public-private partnerships, has been 27 years in the making. Its development cost has escalated to 6,000 crore, but it's a small fraction of the development costs for similar equipment abroad.

Purists will point out that the aircraft uses imported avionics, airframes and a GE engine, and so is not wholly indigenous. But a future version of Tejas powered by Kaveri, the domestic aero-engine programme, complete with indigenised avionics and airframes, is in the works.

And by upgrading its stealth capability, it should be possible to catapult Tejas into the select fifth generation international club in the future. In parallel, we need to strategise synergy so that Tejas provides a strong uplift for Saras, the indigenous civil aircraft programme.